


you made flowers grow in my lungs

by spacefilledeyes



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Cuban Lance, Hanahaki AU, Hanahaki Disease, Langst, Language of Flowers, M/M, Multi, Pining Lance (Voltron), Sad lance, Unrequited Love, before lion swap, established sheith, hanahaki, hanahaki disease au, pining lance, platonic hance, platonic plance, shklangst, tw blood, very slight mention though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-05-01 22:44:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14530923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacefilledeyes/pseuds/spacefilledeyes
Summary: Lance has Hanahaki disease for not one, but two of his teammates.And those teammates happen to be in a very loving, happy relationship.So Lance doesn’t tell.





	you made flowers grow in my lungs

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so this is unedited (anyone wanna be my beta lmao) and I didn’t read over it or anything I’m a mess 
> 
> Look up flower meanings ;) 
> 
> tumblr @spacefilledeyes (I just made it) 
> 
> enjoy!

It all began on an otherwise normal day, with no attacks from the Galra or planets to liberate, just a day for training. Allura had called the entire team down to the training deck, and for once, Lance was going to be there early. 

The Cuban had finished up his (quite long) skincare routine sooner than usual due to an early start that morning- Lance was blaming Hunk and his very loud baking for that one. Lance didn’t even sleep near the kitchens! 

As Lance neared the training deck, it was oddly quiet. There was no sounds of physical exertion, no clashing of metal against metal… nothing. Usually, Keith and Shiro met up to train earlier than everyone else. 

Lance pressed the keypad to open the door, causing it to swish open in front of him. It was then that the sounds hit his ears. 

Soft moaning, barely noticeable, permeated the air. Lance felt his stomach drop as he took a tentative step into the room. What he saw made his heart ache. 

Keith was pressed up against the wall, his hands pinned above his head by one human arm and one robotic. Shiro was leaning over him, and the two were engaging in an overly passionate kiss. Lance felt a bit of bile rise in his throat. 

He tried to back out of the room, unnoticed, but the universe wouldn’t have it. He must have been traveling in the wrong direction, but he wasn’t really looking where he was going, still transfixed on Keith and Shiro, so how could he have known? Lance’s back slammed into one of the walls nearest the doorway and Keith and Shiro startled apart. 

“Ah, Lance,” Shiro began awkwardly, embarrassed at having been caught. A light dust of pink spread across his cheeks, either from Lance seeing him or the tongue he was getting from Keith, “sorry about that-“ 

“What are you doing here so early?” Keith snapped, a furious blush covering his entire face, clearly more embarrassed than Shiro. 

“I- uhm-“ Lance scratched the back of his neck nervously, his heart aching even more at the clear distaste Keith had for him and the fact that he was very much unwanted during this time. 

“I- uhm,” Keith mocked, rolling his eyes as Shiro released his hands from around Keith’s wrists. The red paladin rubbed at them a bit, now glaring in Lance’s direction. 

“I’ve got to go,” Lance mumbled, barely loud enough for Keith or Shiro to hear before racing out of the training deck and into the hallway, nearly ramming his head into Hunk’s chest. 

Hunk pulled him away and held Lance at arms length, “Woah, buddy, you good?” Lance felt tears prick at the corner of his eyes and a tickle in his throat. 

“Y-yeah, Hunk, I just forgot to put on moisturizer, I’ll be back in a few ticks…” The lie felt hollow even to Lance’s own ears, but he pushed past his best friend anyways and broke into a run, heading for his room. 

Except somehow, he couldn’t make it that far. Only a few corridors down, Lance had to slump to the floor in front of a familiar room, heaving for oxygen. His throat felt like it was closing up and he felt the burn of an oncoming cough. 

One, two, three, countless hacks escaped his mouth, but the pressure would not relieve itself. When Lance finally came to accept that he would never be able to breathe right again, the pain was finally gone, replaced with something much, much worse. 

What the fuck? 

A single petal. Yellowish, maybe a dark off-white with the lighting in this corridor. It was unscathed, as if Lance had plucked it off a flower in a meadow instead of it clearly coming from his own lungs. 

A sound of a door opening caught his attention. Lance looked up, and there was Pidge, staring down at him, unimpressed. “What are you doing in the hallway in front of my door?” She asked dryly. 

Lance gave her a look of relief. “I need your help.” 

-

Pidge had brought him into her room, which was cluttered beyond belief with alien trinkets and gadgets. Lance had carefully cleared a spot for himself on the bed, trying not to break anything. 

Now, Pidge stood in front of him, her hand on her hip, looking at him expectantly. “I only brought you in here because you never ask for my help like that unless something is seriously wrong, so dude. Just tell me what happened already.” 

Lance sighed, still clutching the petal in his fist. Slowly, he opened it, and Pidge leaned forward to catch a glimpse of what he was holding. 

“Ooh, a flower petal. Did you find it on some alien planet and now you’re turning green or something?” Pidge asked, half excited, half sarcastic. It was always hard to tell what the green paladin’s true emotions were. 

“Um, no… I was coughing and this sorta came out of my throat?” Lance said, but it sounded pretty unsure. 

Pidge paled. “Are you sure?” 

Lance nodded, “I was there.” 

“Of course you were there, you dipshit, it happened to you!” Pidge punched Lance in the arm lightly. “Well, I can already tell you that this is not good.” 

“So you know what it is?” Lance asked hopefully, perking up. 

Pidge rummaged around for her laptop, and when she found it she opened it up to a large database she had been keeping. “Yeah, I know what it is, put I promise you it isn’t good, in fact, this is very, very bad.” She typed furiously for a minute or so, before spinning her laptop screen so that Lance could read it. 

“Hana-ha-ki?” Lance asked, confused and butchering the pronunciation. “What’s that?” 

“First of all, it’s pronounced Hanahaki, and it’s a disease only about .025% of the human population gets. I only have it in my database because we’ve visited many planets where it’s more common,” Pidge pushed her glasses farther up the bridge of her nose, “and second of all, I’m very surprised you have it, but this is the only thing I’ve heard of that it could be. The genetic makeup of Eastern Asian humans allows for it to be more likely that they contract the disease, but it’s so very unlikely that someone Hispanic like you could catch it.” 

“That’s all very well and good and all-“ Pidge wrinkled her nose at Lance’s tone of indifference, “but how do I get rid of it?” 

“It’s complicated.” Pidge responded. 

Lance cocked an eyebrow, “How so?” 

“Hanahaki Disease is a disease of the lungs where, when love is unrequited, seeds plant themselves in the base of your lungs. First, the infected will cough up petals, like you just did, and then the petals will increase in number. That’s the first stage. The second begins when the infected coughs up fully blooming flowers. There’s not a specific type of flower and it all depends on the situation how fast the stages progress. The third stage is full flowers with stems and leaves.” 

Pidge took a second to herself, before inhaling and continuing, “The final stage, stage four, is when the entire flowers come up so often and take up so much space in the lungs that the infected dies from not getting enough oxygen.” 

Lance was horrified. “How is this possible?!” He asked, baffled. 

Pidge shrugged, and replied, “Scientists on Earth don’t know. I never thought to ask scientists on other planets, though.” 

“Well, how do we cure it?” Lance asked, trying to breathe deep and fight off a panic attack before it began. 

“There’s two ways. First off, you have to confess your feelings for whoever it is, and get those feelings returned.” 

Lance thought back to less than an hour ago on the training deck. The way Shiro had looked at him as if he was a stranger. The anger in Keith’s eyes. 

“That’s not an option,” Lance said with finality. 

“Or you could get a special surgery to have the flowers, seeds, everything removed. If you do that, though, you’ll lose all memories of the person you love.” 

Lance thought about a future where he took that option. He tried to imagine any way they would be able to form Voltron if Lance couldn’t remember Shiro or Keith. 

“I… don’t think that’s possible, either.” Lance said, looking away from Pidge’s prying eyes. 

She shook her head. “You have to do one or the other, Lance.” 

“It’s… I can’t even begin to explain how complicated this is, Pidge. Just, please don’t tell anyone, okay? I will figure it out.” 

Pidge looked extremely hesitant, but looking into Lance’s eyes, faintly wet, begging her not to tell, she broke. “Fine, okay.” 

Lance hugged her. “But if you die, Lance McClain, I’ll kill you.” 

“Yeah, okay. It’s a deal.” 

-

Lance and Pidge walked into the training deck about an hour late. Everyone else had started without them. Allura looked over and said sharply, “Where were you two?!” 

“Uhh…” Lance glanced at Pidge helplessly. 

The green paladin quickly fabricated a believable lie, saying, “Lance threw up because he ate something weird on the last planet, I was just helping him.” Although the part of Pidge helping wasn’t exactly the easiest thing for the others to believe, the part about Lance eating something weird certainly was, and so the rest of the team just allowed them to join in on the training. 

Today was hand-to-hand combat sparring. At the time that Lance and Pidge joined the group waiting for their turns, Shiro and Keith had been up against each other. After this morning, Lance saw things he had hoped were only his imagination before: Shiro and Keith were giving each other looks of love and competition at the same time, laughing with each other, easy smiles on both of their faces. Lance could only look away and fight down a cough. 

Hunk sidled up to Lance, “You good? I don’t want you throwing up all over someone,” The yellow paladin placed a huge hand on Lance’s shoulder, which was easily dwarfed. 

Lance smiled up at his best friend, trying his hardest to look upbeat and cheery, “Yeah, bro. I’m good now.” 

“If you say so,” Hunk nodded along, although he didn’t look very convinced. 

-

Time seemed to be anything but linear from that point onwards. Lance could hardly stand to be in the same room as Shiro or Keith, let alone see them together. 

Every time that Lance saw that loving gaze in their eyes, he excused himself to an empty hallway or bathroom to cough up dozens upon dozens of flower petals. Some of them eventually became tinged with blood, and Lance, although a hopeless romantic who knew the language of flowers, didn’t want to identify the petals’ meaning just yet. 

It was two weeks later when Keith and Shiro came out as a couple to the entire team. They had called everyone to the observation deck for a “special announcement”, and Lance had known immediately. 

Still, he went anyways. He couldn’t just not show up, because then everyone would be suspicious of one thing or another, and Lance didn’t want that. So he went, and when everyone was congratulating the happy couple, the two kissed. 

Lance felt his airways constrict as something forced its way up, and he felt it in his mouth and excused himself hurriedly. He was barely out of the room before a fully formed bloom, a yellow rose, sat in his palm. The edges of the petals were draped in blood, as if it were a decoration. 

Victorian era yellow roses were a symbol of jealousy. 

Suddenly, Pidge was beside him. 

“You’re ok stage two now, I see.” There was a hint of pain, sadness maybe, to her voice as she spoke, “So which one of them is it? Keith or Shiro?” 

Lance shook his head, but Pidge pressed him with a look. 

“It’s both of them,” He rasped, not even bothering to glance at Pidge’s shocked face. 

Pidge wordlessly supported him as they walked to his room, where he fell asleep without dinner, coughing up daffodils and amaryllis blooms. 

-

It’s another week when Hunk finds out. 

Lance was holed up in his room, had been for two days, spitting ever-coming flowers and stray petals into a bucket tha Pidge had given him. He was exhausted, drifting in and out of consciousness. The disease wouldn’t let him sleep for long. 

A knock at his door startled him out of his thoughts, and he coughed again, before forcing out a soft, scratchy “come in”. He expected it to be Pidge. She had assured him that she would try and bring him all of his meals, not that he kept much down anyways. Instead, Hunk strode into his room with a platter, a plate balanced on top. 

“Hey, Lance buddy, I brought-“ Lance watched him stop mid-sentence as he took in his surroundings. 

“Oh my god, Lance…” Hunk set the platter down on Lance’s bedside table, then carefully sat down on the edge of the bed. “Why didn’t you say something?” 

“You would…” Another cough escaped his throat, “force me to tell.” 

“It can’t be that bad. Who wouldn’t love you, Lance?” Hunk reassured, looking at him with pity. 

“Shiro and Keith wouldn’t.” Lance looked away, trying not to catch the pity increase in his best friend’s eyes. 

Hunk sighed, “You still need to tell them, Lance. Do you really want to get the surgery without ever knowing the maybe, the what could have been? Do you want to lose that chance?” 

Lance laughed, hollow, and ended with coughing. “What chance?” 

Hunk simply sighed and opened his arms. Lance shifted forward and let the yellow paladin just hold him. It felt calming, but it didn’t give Lance any semblance of hope. 

“Lance, I don’t know if you know this, but my aunt had Hanahaki. She loved a man who she didn’t think would ever love her back. And so she got the surgery without ever telling him. It was only after the deed was done that the man decided to confess, but my aunt didn’t remember who he was. It was devastating for him, and he ended up contracting Hanahaki himself and dying from it. They both lost a love that could have been, only because my aunt was too scared and wrapped up in her own world.” Hunk chronicled, finishing his story with a sad smile. “Hanahaki runs in my family. I know how painful it is on the heart.” 

“What are the chances I’ll die in the surgery?” Lance asked timidly, feeling like a child. 

Hunk looked down at him seriously, “On Earth, you would have a 10% chance of survival. I don’t know about out here, though.” 

Hunk held Lance in his arms as the Cuban coughed and coughed, entire flowers coming out of his throat and mouth. In between coughs, he would hold the flowers and explain their meanings to Hunk. Amaryllis blooms for pride, daffodils for unrequited love, daisies meant “I will never tell”, and orchids meant “I will always love you”. Hunk gave a forlorn look to each blossom. 

-

Lance had gone weeks without talking to Shiro or Keith, and even when he had to speak to one of them, he used as little words as possible and ran off as soon as he could. He never got far before the flowers came up, though. 

His throat was sore. His lungs ached. His mouth was raw and bleeding. His eyebags got significantly more prominent after the second stage began, because he could no longer sleep at night. 

And it wasn’t like no one noticed. 

Hunk and Pidge remained the only ones aware, fussing over him in the privacy of his room. Although, Lance had a sneaking suspicion that Coran had caught on. 

Allura stopped him after training one day to ask if he was feeling under the weather. Lance just shot a pickup line at her and said he was fine, just tired, and she was off his back. 

Keith cornered him before lunch one day. 

“Lance, you’ve been driving everyone crazy with worry,” He said roughly, his arms folded over his chest but blocking Lance’s only exit, “Just tell us what’s wrong so we can fix it. Is it me and Shiro?” 

Lance spluttered at that, “Wh-wha-“ But he got no chance to formulate an answer. 

Keith rolled his eyes. “Look, I don’t care if you don’t like gay relationships or people, or something like that. Shiro and I are happy. Deal with it. And stop avoiding us.” 

With that, he stomped away, giving Lance no chance to get a word in edgewise. Lance sighed as soon as he was gone, doubling over, coughing and hacking into his hand. A daffodil, stem and all, slithered out of his throat. 

Stage three. 

-

“Lance, you don’t have much time left. Just tell them,” Pidge was exasperated and pleading, nearly on the edge of tears, as Lance puked flowers into the toilet. His room was beginning to smell like a greenhouse in disrepair, a combination of dead plants and fresh blooms. 

Lance pulled up for a few seconds and smiled pitifully, “You know I can’t do that.” 

“But why? If you don’t tell them soon I swear to the heavens above that I will and I won’t make it pretty, either-“ Pidge ranted. She was cut off by a particularly loud hacking sound. 

“Oh quiznack, can you even breathe?” Pidge rushed forward, her tiny hands on Lance’s back, trying to comfort him while not being very comforted herself. Lance tried to respond, but the flowers just kept coming and coming. 

“I’m going to get Coran,” Pidge decided, hurrying out of the room. 

Lance slumped away from the toilet, giving up on keeping the blooms contained in the bowl since it was practically overflowing at this point. He just let the flowers, stems, and petals all surround him, and he felt himself losing grip of his consciousness. 

-

The whooshing sound of the healing pod opening jerked Lance awake as he was thrown into someone else’s body. 

“Lance!” Pidge and Hunk both cheered as he blearily opened his eyes. His entire team was huddled around him, and Hunk was holding him upright. Lance took the time to get himself onto his feet, and then Coran came over and said, “You gave us quite the scare there, number three.” 

Lance suddenly felt very nervous. “Hunk, do they know?” 

Hunk nodded giving him that look full of pity he had become so used to. Lance felt the disease come back full force, and he was dispensing flowers all over the ground. Daffodils, yellow roses, daisies, amaryllis, orchids, the whole works. He felt his vision get blurry with tears. 

Two hands were on his back, and he was being led out of the room, and Pidge and Hunk were not those two hands because there’s no way that Pidge or Hunk got a metal arm while he was out… 

Lance felt the tears overflow and start to stream down his cheeks. He was going to get rejected, he’d have to get the surgery, and then no Voltron because there’s no way he could form Voltron with people he didn’t remember. Lance was beginning to hyperventilate, which only caused the flowers to force themselves up faster, and Lance tried to catch them all, but they floated to the floor and left a beautiful trail. 

He was sat on a bed in a room that wasn’t familiar. Someone sat on each side of him. A hand wiped at the tears still escaping his eyes, and god, Lance felt so weak. 

“Shh. You’re okay,” Shiro’s voice came, soft and comforting, and it only made Lance cry harder. 

So the three of them sat like that, Lance sobbing his eyes out and one of the two people he could never have on either side of him. 

Eventually, the tears ran dry and he was just heaving, until even that stopped and he was finally calm. As calm as one can be when one is about to get rejected by two people at once. 

Shiro’s hand was still on his back, rubbing comforting circles. Keith’s has migrated to Lance’s knee, putting a soft, comfortable pressure on the spot. 

“You don’t have to do this,” Lance began. 

“Lance-“ Shiro tried to cut him off, but the blue paladin pushed forward. 

“You don’t need to sit me down and run through why it never could have worked out. You really don’t need to say you’re sorry and that you wish it was different even though that’s not true. I’ll get the surgery.” 

Lance expected them to let him go, to consider their obligations met. But they didn’t. 

“Lance, that’s not what we’re here to do at all,” Keith said, a hint of frustration to his voice, “things would be so much easier if you would stop assuming.” 

“W-what?” Lance asked, confused. 

“We’re sorry we made you think you’re not wanted, Lance. We just thought- we thought that you were straight,” Shiro confessed, “you’re always flirting with women, and you ran out like you were horrified that day you caught us on the training deck-“ 

“Not to mention you avoided us the whole time all of this was going on, and we had no clue why,” Keith added gruffly. 

“We thought you didn’t want anything to do with us.” 

Laugh let out a broken laugh, “That’s the opposite of what’s true.” 

“Well, after Pidge and Coran found you passed out in your bathroom, barely breathing, they told us what was going on,” Shiro continued to explain. “We were really worried about you. Coran said that the pod only had a 50% chance of keeping you alive at that point.” 

“But we were happy, too. Happy that you didn’t hate us, that you actually wanted to be with us. That you were so in love with us you contracted Hanahaki.” 

“You know what it is?” Lance asked, surprised. 

“Yeah, Shiro and I both have family members that have contracted it. It’s sort of horrifying to find out that someone you love is about to choke to death on flowers, though, so if you could kindly not do that again-“ 

Lance snorted and Shiro admonished the red paladin.

But then, the words really registered in his brain, and his face went slack with shock. 

“What’s wrong?” Shiro asked worriedly upon noticing the Cuban’s expression. 

Lance took a deep breath and asked, “Is it true?” 

At the other two’s looks of confusion, he clarified, “Is it true, what Keith said? That you guys love me?” 

“How could we not?” Shiro responded softly. “We’ve wanted you as a part of our relationship for months.” 

“Even though your pickup lines are the worst.” Keith added on helpfully. 

Lance rolled his eyes, “Yeah, whatever you say, mullet boy.” But on the inside, he was bursting with happiness. He never thought anything like this could have happened. 

“So what do you say, Sharpshooter?” Shiro asked, grabbing his chin so that they were making eye contact. “Want to be a part of all of this mess?” 

Lance pretended to think about it, glancing at Keith then back to Shiro. “Nothing could make me happier.” 

Keith and Shiro shared a smile before each of them took a hold of one of Lance’s hands. 

“Quiznack, this is way cheesier than I expected it to be,” Keith joked. 

“Great going, you ruined the moment, mullet head.” 

“Will you stop teasing my hairstyle? What did it ever do to you?” Keith said, pretending to be angry, but his smile gave him away. 

“I’m sure everyone is waiting for us back in the commons,” Shiro prodded, so the three of them stood up, ready to move forwards together.

**Author's Note:**

> I know the ending is weak don’t @ me 
> 
> tumblr @spacefilledeyes


End file.
